I know they’ve done Arsenio and Leno and Letterman and Oprah. But I’m still convinced that the upcoming appearance of the presidential candidates and their wives on Dr. Phil marks a new low point for American politics and maybe for American culture.

It’s bad enough that John and Theresa will appear next week. It’s even worse that the President and the First Lady are on tap this week. This isn’t just because the President has made it pretty clear that he and his are not major fans of psychology (apparently he prefers a fake shrink to a real one – at least there will be no charges that he’s mingling with the intellectual elite). W should avoid Phil’s couch because an appearance with this quack soils the office of the president more than any Oval Office oral indiscretion possibly could.

I would rather see my candidate make a green and grainy videotape with Paris Hilton than appear on the same stage as Dr. Phil. I would rather see Kerry get punk’d by Ashton Kutcher or see George W. Bush reacting to the verbal jabs from the dudes from Jackass as he dangles from a tree branch by his snuggied underpants. Anything would beat seeing either one of these men debase our nation with a visit to a psycho-hack who is so oddly effective as a communicator that he has managed to give advice on losing weight even though he’s sort of fat.

Oh, I know that it would be difficult for any candidate to pass up on a free hour of television time in front of millions of mostly women voters. But when is low just too damn low?

Answer: Dr. Phil.

Let’s figure out another way for the candidates to target undecided voters who may not be watching the evening news. How about a two man runoff on a special episode of Elimidate? A former bikini model has had too much to drink and wants to see which contestant can give a better lapdance. Now that’s politics. Whichever man can impress us in that situation can certainly handle something as relatively simple as, say, negotiating an end to Kim-Jung-Il’s nuclear testing.

Let’s get these guys on a speed round of Wheel of Fortune (nothing warns of bad fiscal policies like the poorly timed and wholly unnecessary buying of a vowel).

They could both appear in Trump’s boardroom or go head to head with Ken Jennings on a special edition of Jeopardy. W could have his Crawford pickup cherried out on Pimp My Ride while John Kerry shows his more human side as he interacts with Brigitte Nielsen, Flavor Flav and Charo on a special episode of The Surreal Life. Trust me, nothing can humanize a candidate faster than his being coaxed into saying “Cuchi, Cuchi, Cuchi” while sipping Costco margaritas and floating among the suds in a reality television hot tub.

I would rather see these guys on Springer than on Dr. Phil. At least Jerry and his audience all know they are participating in total nonsense. Dr. Phil has actually duped his audience into believing that they are really being guided along the path towards overcoming life’s many difficulties.

And it’s not just the candidates and the voters who will come out the losers in this scenario. It’s Dr. Phil’s regular viewers. Are you feeling depressed? Feeling like there is an absence of truth and meaning in your slife? Well, take it from me. The last thing you want to do is to start paying closer attention to national politics.

So the candidates want to reach millions of undecided women voters, many of whom are mothers. But presidential appearances on Dr. Phil are clearly wrong for America. How do we solve this dilemma?

I’ve got one word for you.

Barney.

In the short term, the greatest risk in Iraq is that the country spirals into a more dire state of chaos. This would make the transition to democracy less likely, cost the lives of many more Americans and Iraqi civilians, and create an oozing cesspool for terrorist groups to recruit and train.

In the long term, the risk in Iraq is that children who once went to school to learn to read, write and count will instead spend all of their academic time on the kind of “religious” education that helped to create a generation of terrorists. That would be, in every sense, a worst case scenario. And it’s already looking like a trend.

Everyone has advice for John Kerry going into the three debates. Even Al Gore has chimed in:

But more important than his record as a debater is Mr. Bush’s record as a president. And therein lies the true opportunity for John Kerry – because notwithstanding the president’s political skills, his performance in office amounts to a catastrophic failure. And the debates represent a time to hold him to account. For the voters, these debates represent an opportunity to explore four relevant questions: Is America on the right course today, or are we off track? If we are headed in the wrong direction, what happened and who is responsible? How do we get back on the right path to a safer, more secure, more prosperous America? And, finally, who is best able to lead us to that path?

Comparing these grandiose promises to his failed record, it’s enough to make anyone want to, well, sigh.”

Gore is right about the Bush record. But I wonder if his advice is enough. If you look at the numbers, it’s already pretty clear that a majority of Americans want a change of direction. While many of us (myself included) have offered Kerry advice on the many ways to attack the Bush record, I think the 90 minutes on Thursday night will be more about the messenger than the message.

Since this is the week of debate wishing and advice, I figured I’d toss in my own idea for the perfect debate. I would like to see Jim Lehrer, Charles Gibson, Bob Schieffer and all of the carefully vetted townhall participants agree to ask, over and over and over, about only one topic.

The general question I’d like to hear asked until answered:

So come on. What’s the deal with this whole Skull and Bones thing?

Remember, whichever guy wins the debates and the election, the Bonesmen come out on top. How did we end up with two clubmembers on the same ballot for the nation’s top office?

What goes on during their initiation? Who are the members? Has either candidate for president ever done anything which, if caught on network television, would result in a massive fine from the FCC?

There are many more related questions I’d like to pose, but for some reason, my keyboard and my computer have sudddenly stopped worki…

Mathew Gross points out that during this election cycle, there has been almost no public discourse about the fact that the next president may make at least one new pick for the Supreme Court or the fact that oil prices are going through the roof.

These are just two of the issues that have been lost in the all Iraq all the time public debate. Actually, it’s not all Iraq and the war on terrorism. It’s also about Vietnam and Alabama in the 70s.

This is by design. It’s not a coincidence that the Bushies pushed to have foreign policy headline the first (and therefore the most watched) debate session. For several years we’ve been fixated on the war on terror and the war in Iraq. Meanwhile, a rather one-sided cultural war has been taking place.

This cultural divide (Church/State issues, stem cells, gay marriage, Janet Jackson’s knocker, etc) rarely even comes up on the campaign trail. And think of some of the issues that often dominate a presidential election. The economy. Healthcare. Crime. Jails. Judges.

These issues and more are largely off the table in this election. Instead its all about war and perceptions of personal values and character. That is partially a result of the times in which we live. But it’s also a result of one side framing the election around the issues where they think they will win and the other side letting the frame stay there.